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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 22, 1993                   TAG: 9301220038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short

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4TH FATALITY ON SOVIET SUB REPORTED

A Soviet sailor manually lowered the containment bars to shut down the reactor of a crippled nuclear submarine in 1986 and died when the vessel sank, a newspaper said Thursday, citing secret military documents.

Sergei Preminin's previously unreported death raised to four the number of people who died aboard the K-219 submarine when it sank on Oct. 3, 1986, in the Atlantic about 1,000 miles off North Carolina.

The accident was first reported by U.S. authorities and confirmed by the Soviet Union. But Soviet officials released virtually no details at the time, except to say the submarine sank following a fire and that it posed no danger to the environment.

The brief Soviet statement after the accident said three crew members died aboard the submarine.

In its account Thursday, the Trud newspaper said the Soviet military had investigated whether the K-219 collided with a U.S. submarine before it sank, but had uncovered no evidence of a collision.

The Yankee-class submarine was carrying 15 strategic nuclear missiles and had 113 sailors on board when it left its northern base on Sept. 4, 1986, Trud reported.

It said the submarine sustained an explosion in one of its missile shafts that caused a fire and released toxic gases.

Several sailors who were inside the compartment inhaled the yellowish toxic fumes, and three died, Trud said.

It said an emergency system was activated and shut down one of the submarine's two reactors. But when Moscow finally ordered the vessel abandoned, it became clear that automatic devices could not lower the containment bars of the remaining reactor.

Keywords:
FATALITY

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